The Brazilian Grand Prix was the penultimate round of the 2010 World Championship and many teams have already stopped developing this year’s car and are fully focussed on next year’s.

There are quite a few changes for next year, with the banning of the double diffuser, the introduction of the adjustable rear wing, the switch to Pirelli tyres and the return of KERS. In the paddock in Brazil there was quite a bit of dissatisfaction with KERS coming back.

It was Ferrari who pushed it through, funnily enough around the time they were due to appear before the FIA World Council to face the team orders charges relating to the German Grand Prix.

To make KERS more attractive next year the minimum weight limit has been increased and as a safety net the top teams also pushed through a FOTA edict on weight distribution with between 45.5% and 46.5% front weight distribution. This cuts down the risk of a team which decides not to use KERS being more competitive. The weight distribution has also been done with one eye on the new Pirelli tyres.

Whereas teams like Red Bull and Renault did not use KERS last year, next year they definitely will. The smaller teams are annoyed that they don’t have the opportunity to be competitive without KERS – as Brawn were last year.

Also causing general unhappiness is the cost of the exercise, put at around €10 million per team and the fact that the power output from the KERS has not been increased, to make it more challenging.

But all that is for next year. For this finale to the 2010 season, the teams fighting for the championship are still pushing, with updates to the McLaren and Ferrari noticeable in Sao Paulo.

Ferrari
Ferrari adopted their latest evolution of the blown diffuser with the airflow from the exhausts also blowing inside the side channels. This helps dramatically in terms of improving the efficiency of this element in each of its sections. The Ferrari diffuser differs from the Red Bull’s as it features a horizontal hole rather than a vertical one of the RB6. The central section used in Korea has been modified with more rounded profiles and the additional middle plate in the side channels is no longer present. Ferrari also had some updates to brake ducts, a tiny fin could be seen, showing that the teams were looking for any and all additional downforce possible on this downforce dependent circuit.

The weakness of this year’s Ferrari relative to the Red Bull was in sequences of fast corners like Sector 1 in Suzuka or Becketts at Silverstone. With these small but important increments, Alonso was on a similar race pace to the Red Bulls around Interlagos, while qualifying pace was hard to judge because of the damp track condition. Alonso was particularly fast once the cars switched to the hard tyre after the pit stops.

McLaren
McLaren again made some detail changes to the front wing (see drawing left) and rear wing of the MP4/25. Noticeable was the return to the standard F Duct with air blowing into the flap of the wing, rather than copying the Force India solution of air blowing downwards into the main plane of the wing, which many teams have found has a more powerful effect (see photo below)

But the main novelty was in the front assembly with a different intermediate splitter under the nose cone. This one in fact is subtly different in its front edge, now slightly rounded and featuring a sort of slightly V shaped entry profile. This improves the efficiency around the front suspension wishbones, in particular diverting in a more efficient way the air flow, divided in two portions, one directed to the engine radiators, and the lower portion underneath the car.

Lewis Hamilton’s car struggled for pace in early part of the race, losing performance from the soft tyre early on. He was faster on the hard tyre after the pit stop.

James, the obvious question: how competitive are the front runners going to be in Abu Dabi? I mean, do you think that the Ferraris will be able to match the pace of the Bulls (= Fernando has big chances to get the title), or is it very likely to see a RBR 1-2?

At least we can be sure of a dry weekend! Personally think it will be a RBR one-two with Vettel shifting over to let the big Aussie through. Although as Steven has just pointed out, none of us have a clue.

James, everybody is talking about the strategies of Red Bull, taking for granted that they'll do P1 and P2. Don't you think that there is a great chance of a P1 by the F10? I am saying this because the red car seems has a similar if not better race pace than the RBRs once the tires warm-up, and this will happen very soon in the desert.... what do you reckon?

As you point out James,the restriction on weight distribution, will prevent a non KERS car using the extra balaast they would have available to find the best sweet spot for the new tyres. Do you know if this weight distribution will be something that is checked in pre and post race scrutineering. And if so is this something that a team could be disqualified for if it is outside the specified requirements.

With moveable ballast the weight distribution could be changed very easily...

Why is everybody so bothered about front wing flexibility. We saw that since the FIA introduced the new flexibility rules, the RedBull front wing doesn't flex anymore. At least it doesn't flex the same amount it used to.

If in the future a team is smart enough to make its wing flex above the limits, the FIA might change its tests to enforce the rule. End of Story.

I may be wrong on this but pretty sure they can't ban something if they don't know how it works and thus cant develop a test to catch it. As much as all the Mclaren fanboys wish that photo and videos could be used, if they cant discern the tech behind it they can't keep it off the track... perhaps something is in the works to figure out what makes the wing drop so much in which case they could prevent their use same as they did trying to prevent flexing rear wings years ago, otherwise game on

Flexing wings that almost touched the ground was contrary to the spirit of the rules even if they met wholly inadequate FIA tests. So full marks to Redbull for expoiting that but one does not know how many times FIA has told Redbull to go away and come back with a legal wing after revised testing procedures. There is also nothing to preclude FIA making further changes to its testing procedures to put this issue to bed for 2011.

With testing banned, how would teams determine whether their new parts are going to be legal or not? They can stick weights on the front wing at the factory to test compliance, but they wouldn't want to waste hours of wind tunnel time seeing whether the front wing bends 1mm too far at 250km/h

"Alonso was on a similar race pace to the Red Bulls around Interlagos"

I'm sure I read (and saw) that even after getting past Hulkenberg, he was 0.5s a lap slower than the Red Bulls. He only caught up and was faster later in the race but I assume that was because the Red Bulls were not pushing any more, and because Webber was nursing his engine which was (allegedly) overheating.

The Ferrari was by no means slow (it flew up to the back of Hamilton on the straights - where the McLarens are supposed to have the edge! - and it was a matter of time before he got himself up into the 3rd) but the Red Bulls were easily the fastest cars of the weekend. They just got so far ahead they didn't need to push any more.

Agree with you Alonso was slower most of the race and RedBull were managing their pace in my view. I see Ferrari struggling to match the Bulls in Abu Dhabi. Their hope is in the qualies. Webber will be under huge pressure and let's not forget that he won nothing in his career (0 titles).

Alonso is not immune to mistakes either, although they are pretty rare he has been out of sorts this season. The banker with Fernando is his ability to deal with this level of pressure. I believe the RBR cars will be quicker and probably on a better strategy as a result of it, the question for me is how far can Fernando's engine be cranked up for the final race. If they are confident of having the mileage and they can give him the confidence to go out and steal the title I wouldn't bet against him doing it. Spain is my adopted home and I know people here would go ape about him crossing the line, but my heart says Webber.

It's fine to say such and such was on the same pace as somebody else but, for all we know, the Red Bulls weren't really pushing as soon as they got past Hulkenburg. Likewise, the comment about Hamilton being closer to the pace once on hard tyres doesn't tell us much either - he was complaining of no grip and the team brought him in so how much does him being closer to the pace have to do with him wrecking his tyres to maintain pace while others raced composed, controlled races?

Not quite sure... I think the F10 is at par with the RBRs when the tires are warm enough. They deal a lot better with degradation as well. Will this happen in the desert?? We'll see, but for me there's a good chance of a very close race with Hamilton in the middle being the judge....

It's strange you mention Ferrari were the team that pushed KERS through because I heard Anthony Davidson say that he'd heard rumours that Ferrari may not run KERS because they found it difficult to use and unreliable in 2009.

Also, do you think that McLaren will have a big advantage on the KERS front going into 2011 due to their superior system in 2009?

Everybody is talking about McLaren KERS James. Is the system developed by Mercedes or am I wrong ? If it's the case, will Mercedes provide McLaren with their KERS or let them develop their own as they would prefer to keep it for their own team.

The same question arises for RedBull, are they going to develop their own system or will their use the one developed by Renault ?

There are rumours that Mclaren might not run the same system as in 09. In 09 it was purely an electric system and the rumours are they will be using a an electric-hydraulic hybrid which is lighter, but more importantly smaller allowing it to have less impact on the outer body work, hence better aero.

The disadvantage is that it has less power output potential but because the regs haven't allowed an increase in power it allows this solution to be viable.

I'm not sure about Anthony Davidson's comments but Ferrari announced some time ago that they are pro-KERS, as they are keen for F1 to be aligned as closely as possible with usable, real-world technology that will benefit its road cars.

From a sporting perspective, I was slightly surprised, as McLaren’s was regarded as the finer system in 2009 and Ferrari struggled with it for some time. However, they would clearly have an advantage over Red Bull in this area.

James – I thought that KERS power output was to be increased next year to act as an incentive for teams to adopt it. Was this ever discussed?

Also, am I going mad, or is KERS supposed to be mandatory in future seasons?

Re KERS being mandatory, it is likely to be part of the 2013+ package to get the necessary power and economy.

It will be interesting to see how good the Mercedes system is. My understanding is that a lot of Daimler money went into the McLaren system and there are hybrid Mercedes-Benz road cars. I have seen statements here about the system being McLaren's, but a key advantage was battery technology, particularly the charging rate (BMW couldn't achieve the full charge in a lap) and heat (an early Ferrari problem).

Red Bull is going with the Magneti Marelli system that it started with in 2009 and Ferrari and Renault adapted. With two more years battery technology development and the same energy limits, the main difference is likely to be packaging - size, weight and cooling will all have secondary effects.

Ferrari potentially has a strong business case for KERS. It needs it for CO2 reduction in Europe and the F1 development shares the costs and provides a marketing link.

I was about to post on the McLaren KERS as well to ask the same question.

You'd think that McLaren would have the initial advantage as it was widely considered that their implementation of the KERS system in 2009 was better than anyone else. Of couse, as we found out in 2009, having the best KERS system doesn't necessarily mean having the fastest car. McLaren only won races that year due to their pace of development with other aspects I think. But if they can get a nicely balanced car, combined with the expected advantage they should have with KERS, then I think they will be quick next year.

Of course, it remains to be seen what effect challenging for this years championships right up until the last minute will have on next years development. It will certainly be interesting.

No mention of Webber's updated floor in Sao Paulo which gave him more stability and eventually bit of speed, that Vettel didn't get.

When Webber is favoured with new parts (RBR keeping their word when it comes to giving the parts to the guy leading the championship, now Webber), keep it quiet, it doesn't fit into the agenda and the BS drama we try to create 😛

I mean seriously, if Vettel had that updated floor and Webber didn't, it would have been the story of the weekend and rest of the week, spun to bash RBR and Vettel.

Just to add so you maybe have a lead, BBC on the Red Button briefly reported it during the first Friday practice and Horner also confirmed this on German TV before qualifying. Namely only Webber had the updated floor.

Also not widely reported (although Horner said this on the BBC live, while everyone was fixated about the wing) was that Webber also had an updated floor in Silverstone, which Vettel didn't have and one of the many reasons Vettel got the wing is to test the advantage of the new floor (only Webber) and new wing (only Vettel after his own malfunctioned) seperately to see what the gain was for each update.

I mean I like the added drama, but only if it is reported in a balanced manner.

Seems like you're well capable of reading between the lines when it isn't reported even-handedly. Thanks for the insight mate! I think a lot has been made of the disdain for Webber within the team, part of me thinks Mark is pushing it quite hard to try and unsettle his opponent but I'm a cynic haha, he's far too wiley to undermine his own guys. It's just sad that we could see a double championship for RBR resulting in a lot of acrimony and the WC walking from the team.

I think it's been a real shame we have seen drivers lose out by pushing flat out this year. Martin Brundle commented how Hamilton took too much out of the life of his tyres after the stop for hards but what's he supposed to do?

In Singapore we heard Vettel over the radio saying "I'm not pushing" to his engineer. Why have a 2 hour race and have a driver looking after his tyres for much of it?

It's such a shame F1 has gone this route. I would feel that no driver performance this year has been exceedingly great. The type of performances that made F1 worth watching for me were:2008 Britain (Lewis), 2008 Hungary (Massa), and 2008 Japan (Alonso). I believe we won't see those kinds of performances today because of the rules that prevent it. And I haven't seen any kind of great performances like those in 2010.

Abu Dhabi 2010, will be my last F1 race I'm going to watch until F1 wants to return to something better. I've been watching F1 for 16 years and there's only been 2 seasons I've not enjoyed watching: the last 2.

I don't enjoy one pitstop (roughly the same lap for 4 seconds a piece) followed by follow-the-leader for 60-70 laps.

My friends once complained that F1 is nothing more than cars processionally circulating and I said to them if they understood what was going on they'd realise that every gap, every lap was crucial because of fuel strategy.

I dont understand which rule you dislike. Eitther the institute a "no tire change rule" which will have the same effect, or they make all the drivers pit for tires at the same time. Some drivers, and cars, are easier on tires, Lewis can push as hard as he wants, but he won win any races if he needs to pit more than the other drivers.

ABout good performances, Australia 2010 was very good by Hamilton, he got new tires even though the other drivers didnt and he still finished 4th. After the tire change he had to drive tru the feel to get back to alonso, he had so many great passes.

Yep, Hanilton in Aus and Vettel in Silverstone were good I agree - albeit Hamilton's poor qualifying performance let him down that weekend and he didn't finish 4th like you said.

My view, reinstate refuelling. 300,000 Euros per year to jet around the equipment is not much when you consider they are spending nearly 10 million on KERS.Also, return the car designs to 2008 spec minus the appendages. I like the aero bits but if they hamper overtaking then leave them out.

So - refueling, 2008 spec cars, and turbo engines would be the three things that would make for an exciting season and a return to genuinely exciting racing, not just a close points table.

Agree totally about the fuel. It annoys me that they have dumbed down a key element of the sport to stop new viewers being confused and to save money in a sport that is essentially a 10 month cash burning excercise. Don't let us down Pirelli or we're going to be in REAL trouble haha.

It's not about the team orders in their own right. I'm sure even the most hardcore 'race til the line' kind of fan would understand Seb locking a wheel into one of the corners and letting Webber through at Yas for the WDC. The real issue is how early Ferrari pulled the trigger, and how obvious it was. I think we all need to remember that there is a lot of interest in F1 from parties who really don't know a thing about Grand Prix racing (news media, sponsors, fairweather fans, many tv broadcasters.) Their opinion is far louder and easier to circulate than anything us accolytes on here can muster.

It is a mark of the larger teams still pushing to catchup that they are undoubtedly spending thousands on developing concepts which have a race life of 1 more race (F flap and Diffusers).

The technical side of the sport (most of which is beyond my relatively low level of understanding on aero and vehicle dynamics) is intriguing. The way the front wing directs air over the car is absolutely a work of genius.

Can anyone point me to a youtube clip of something showing that?

James,

are you doing a show with Eddie on Talksport again at the end of the season? Great book by the way. My order is already placed.

I suspect they'll have to due to McLaren and Mercedes having a long term contract in place for one supplying the other with engines and other racing components. If McLaren's 2009 KERS was indeed a Mercedes system, then I'd assume it's covered in the contract and Mercedes will have to design, manufacture and supply it to McLaren.

Hello James, I hope you will see my message. For the last couple of months I can't post on your blog. I put a comment, but I do not get a message "Your comment is awaiting moderation". Instead I am being redirected to the top of the articles. I really want to participate...not just read:-)

Something similar happened to me during August. I guess it was because accidentally a part of my e-mail adress was deleted on the comment box, so I suppose as the nickname didn't match with the e-mail, the comment was automatically rejected. Once I corrected it, everything worked again. Have you checked that?

This news on KERS for 2011 is distressing. A $10m spend for this nonsense when sponsorship is so difficult is madness. Even more mad is the idea of limiting it's power to the effect of making it redundant in terms of advantage in the top teams. It appears that once again -the inmates are running the asylum.

james, abu dhabi looks like a ferrari circuit, with heavy braking and existing where good traction is needed. Is red bull strong in these areas? Not many high speed corners? Its looks an evenly matched circuit for both teams? Its down 2 the drivers now or good or bad luck.

I think Hamilton will be the Key in Abu Dhabi. Red Bulls will watch what he does knowing he could take 3rd place from Alonso... In which case they let Seb Vettel take the Win and the Championship..

If Alonso puts the frighteners on Hamilton like he has already done in the last 2 races... all bets are off and RB will have to let Webber Take the Win and Championship.

Seb Vettel may not "Bon Ami" Webber, but he is not callous enough to hand the title to Alonso. I said sometime ago on this Blog that Vettel is the "man who would be King" and maintain that is still the case.

James do you think that Hamilton would deserve the WDC if the Red Bulls and Alonso crashed/broke down at Abu Dhabi while in front of him and gifted him the win and the WDC, especially if Button was ahead of him and let him past?

I think that it's hard to compare drivers from different teams. If you compare ones from the same team, I must admit that Vettel is worthier than Webber of the title. For me Alonso and Hamilton will be both equally worthy.

Whenever anyone talks about who deserves the title this year, there's an interview that springs to mind which, for me, sums it up perfectly. It was from Steven Bradbury, an Australian short-track speed skater who won a gold medal at the 2002 winter Olympics.

For those who don't know, he won gold after the three skaters in front of him crashed on the last lap of the race; he was far enough behind to have no chance of even getting on the podium under normal circumstances.

When asked by reporters if he felt awkward accepting the gold medal given the circumstances, he said something along the lines of:

'I'm not accepting the medal for this one race, it's for the 12 years of sacrifices, hard work and training that got me to this point'

Regardless of how it all shakes out, the winner will have made sacrifices, put in the effort and done all that they could to get into a position to win - not just this year, but since they were young kids - and, in my mind, deserve the championship.

Bradbury actually had 4 competitors fall in front of him in a field of five for the gold medal. He also made it through the heats because of a post race disqualification and the semis because two others fell.

He was previously considered unlucky because of the number of life threatening accidents he had endured.

But it was also a strategic decision to leave space to the leaders in case of a fall. He judged he was too old to win with outright speed.

An experienced and determined competitor....

Webber will definitely know Bradbury's story intimately for obvious reasons.

After twenty races, anybody that finishes top of the pile deserves to be there - how can you argue otherwise? It's like saying Alonso doesn't deserve it because he had a poor stretch in the first half of the season. The points simply don't lie.

It's the same argument for the Button bashers - does it really matter that his second half of the season was weaker than the first half? In the eyes of those who want/need to see somebody dominate a whole season, maybe, but the points situation doesn't lie.

The only argument about somebody not deserving to win the championship is if they applied what some might deem to be illegal or underhand tactics - it's why there are quite a few people saying they'd be a bit miffed if Alonso won the championship. Nobody would be saying that if he was leading - and went on to win the championship - had he been able to pass a (let's face it) extremely weak team mate without the team having to resort to pretty shameless actions.

I think you'll find up to and including Spa, Lewis was completely faultless and many said was driving better than he ever had - essentially leading the pack even though he had been in the 3rd fastest car at most races and also had those two big car failures in Barcelona and Hungary. So to say he was just strong mid-season isn't really a true fair assessment.

Hamilton and Vettel have had much more bad luck than the other 2 contenders and simply on that they deserve to be ahead. If something bad happens to Alonso and Webber than it'll only really balance things out in my opinion and Hamilton would definitely be a worthy champion to this season.

Renault did use Kers last year, they dropped it for the second part of the season (bar Monza IIRC).

@Dave:

The ferrari needs some laps to get heat on their tires, you can check on many races this year that Alonso's Ferrari gains momentum as the stint progresses. I do think that, if sunny, the pace is gonna be quite even.

It´s crazy for KERS to come back. It adds zero to race interest, drives everyone Krazy, and creates a bigger gap between rich and poor teams.

Besides, F1 is 10 years behind road cars : Prius and all those already have it, and now soon we will be electric or hydrogen or gas or ethanol. There is zero interest for KERS in F1 - who cares? this is old boring news.

More importantly, is it ESSENTIAL to reduce engine size and emissions or are we being too eager to trash the concept of the sport to appease a couple of sponsors? Until Formula Zero comes along with no mess and super fast cars F1 should be the pinnacle, not a way of easing engine manufacturer's guilt.

I think KERS is being approached wrongly for F1. If they really want to promote technical innovation and improve the green credentials of the sport there should be no arbitrary limit on the power output of KERS over a single lap. The only limit should be how much energy can be harvested from braking and the weight of the system. This would mean that teams had to design low weight efficient and powerful KERS systems and this would be a completely different optimisation problem. Currently, the energy source has to only be comparable to the allowed energy output on a given lap.

A deregulated approach would promote KERS as a real driver of performance and teams would focus on it like they used to do on engine technology. This, however, would obviously cost a lot of money to teams if a lot of development went into KERS therefore they could institute a KERS-only budget cap.

To sum it up, money is the issue in F1. Both privateers and manufactures want to spend less and less. Some even want to earn money with F1.

The only reason FOTA was created is to have more money from Bernie and put less money in the sport (track testing, wind tunnels, CFD limitaions).

I agree with you KERS introduction is a bit weird as it won't be an differentiator between the F1 teams. One might say that the packaging, the weight and the cooling of the system are differentiators which is true (reason why Mercedes system is so praised) but we want differentiation in power output.

When it comes to KERS, the financial argument just does not fly. Unlike little tweaks of the car's aerodynamics, a functional KERS is a potential source of income.

KERS can make a team money. It does for Williams, and they haven't even raced it themselves! Likewise, Flybird systems (who developed the mechanical Honda-system) is now a standalone company that caters to both motorsport and transport as well as working with Jaguar Cars. Besides, every engine-manufacturer has an interest in this technology anyway.

They want F1 to be economically sustainable? Really? What better way than to use their best asset- meaning their engineering expertise.

I agree that the limitations (quite aside from being artificial) are preventing KERS from being useful. Not just in F1 itself, but it also prevents the teams from contributing to the development of relevant road-car technology. And given the fact that the F1 teams have large budgets and the greatest engineering minds of the automotive industry at their disposal, the contribution they could make to that should not be underestimated.

Furthermore, more freedom means that more possible implementations can be developed and evaluated, perhaps suiting different budgets? I already linked a story from Craig Scarborough's blog today, and though I don't wish to take anything away from James' excellent tech-reports, I'm linking yet another story. http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/kers-anatomy/ The "Flybird"-system he describes on there seems especially well suited to smaller teams (no batteries either!).

Besides, with the engine freeze and the incredibly specific regulations regarding the rest of the car, there are very few differentiating factors between the cars. Differences in performance come from aero and aero alone and even then the differences are minute. Looking at the formula1.com technical page shows only a succession of changes in curves of tiny flaps.

The huge budgets and immense talent of F1 engineers are directed at bending the regulations instead of the laws of physics which is just such a waste. This gives us the very close racing we've been enjoying, of course but it does make F1 seem a bit like a spec-series in (an expensive) disguise. F1 will always have to walk that tight-rope between competition in the factory and competition on track. KERS seems a useful, but not too extremely useful, area on which to spend some money and on which to put some engineers.

Finally, we don't need a budget cap for KERS. First of all, unlike all the aero-malarkey it is technology that can actually make money. Williams, for example, has been successfully exploiting its KERS without ever having run it for themselves -let's see the F-duct do that! And the manufacturers will develop it anyway. Even Ferrari is building a hybrid and how can companies like Mercedes and Renault not be on top of this?

Second, this is the perfect time because no money is being spent on engine development (or shouldn't be anyway). Let the engine manufacturers take a leading role for the first couple of years. Their parent-companies need the technology anyway and it's not like they have anything better to do until the preparations for 2013 start. After that regulations can be put in place in the interest of cost-restriction and racing if it's really necessary but a short period of wild and free development is no bad thing.

As far as I can gather they can technically work with any type of diffuser, it's just that because openings in the diffuser have been banned to prevent the Double Decker Diffuser, exhaust gasses also can't be directed into the diffuser.

In short, the main problem with blown diffusers in 2011 is the fact that, without openings in the diffuser, teams can't blow the exhaust-gasses directly into it. This prevents the DDD but also the open-fronted variant of the blown diffuser (which is the most powerful implementation).

Exhaust gasses can still be blown over the top of the diffuser, which is how some teams have already tried to exploit the same principles (I'm not sure if this practice still fits the definition of a blown diffuser but let's not complicate things further).

Though I wouldn't say it was terrible, the push-to-pass implementation left a lot to be desired.

But KERS is not really about that. The push-to-pass could also have been achieved with engine-settings (eg temporarily allowing 20k rpm) or adjustable aero (F-duct or a flap like next year).

KERS is about how F1 cars use as much of the energy the engine generates as possible. KERS is simply about more power. Using KERS and having a push-to-pass system are completely different issues that have become entangled only because of the specific way KERS was implemented. It's important not to confuse the two even when the FIA do.

KERS is important (and potentially very lucrative) technology that should be in F1. Push-to-pass (whether via aero, engine-management or KERS-boost) is artificial nonsense out of video-games and movies.

Is it just me or does anybody else hate the route f1 is going down next year with kers and the rear wing joke. Seriously it's getting a we bit computer game now. I would rather have 1 class overtake a race like sutil on the toro rosso on Sunday rather than 25 false overtakes a race we might see next year. I hope it fails miserably and they put the 2 of them in the skip very shortly. What was wrong with races like Australia Malaysia china Canada spa brazil Korea this year. Nothing leave it alone please and stop these dopey rule changes every 5 mins

It's a racewinning car! One of only three on the grid. Only one car can be the fastest and in F1 nearly half the teams are capable of of building a championship contender. McLaren built the third or second best, depending how you look at it.

McLaren has been soundly ahead of the reigning constructors champion, has at some point lead the championships and has won races. That is not a bad result at all. Furthermore it was close enough to the front that the drivers had a real shot at the championship. Merc, Renault and Williams would have signed for that this year.

The perspective that a car that does not dominate the season is "a dog" is completely wrong. In the end, McLaren is one of twelve teams who are all working on the highest level of motorsports and they aren't entitled to anything. Race wins and contending for the championship, if only for a time, are good results for any team, even for so-called top-teams.

Harsh but true. I had a rant weeks ago that McLaren had failed its drivers and that has been borne out. I don't believe Jenson was just whining about poor traction etc. Hamilton has had an average result after a supreme effort.

A real shame for Jenson to loose the Championship with a second rate ride. He should be congratulated for keeping up his own standards and staying to the end. He's in a different league to Massa.

You have to give full Marks to Hamilton for fighting so hard. It led to mistakes but he would have been supreme in a first rate car.

With the rule changes next season McLaren need to get their technical team to improve dramatically. There will be blood on the floor at the end of this season.

His own standards? Is this on a career long timeline or just the 1 season at Brawn? There is a chasm between his abilities and that of Vet/Alo/Ham. Being in a different league to Massa isn't really a huge accolade.

I was of the same perspective as several other fans regarding KERS and how it makes overtaking seem like that in a video game. But if you really think about it, how is passing with KERS any different from using the F-duct to pass? Both methods use a driver aided auxiliary resource to provide an extra boost on straights.

Ferrari were one of the leading agitators for KERS in 2011. Is that because they have been developing this technology and are now feeling confident they now have a winning edge with it? Noticeable that because Ferrari has so much more power and influence with Bernie and FIA, Ferrari are able to push for change when they are not winning everything but are able to slow down the rule changes when they are winning from year to year.

James, I just pre-ordered my copy yesterday through this site. But it seems that I will need another one for a Chistmas present. Is it possible to add another copy to my order, so I only pay the shipping costs once? If so, what do I have to do?

Races like Singapore, Japan and Brazil were such a bore, only Canada was a really exciting race as tires were wearing forcing drivers to make more stops. More stops makes for more variable racing which is exciting; so either make 3 compulsory tires needed for the race which means 2 stops, or bring back refueling but make the tanks smaller so at least 2 or 3 fueling stops are needed.

James and others have suggested having tyres that are "marginal" i.e., that wear more quickly. Thus giving the situation where drivers who are hard on their rubber (by driving fast) need to make more stops compared to those that are able to nurse their tyres (and drive slightly more slowly).

But, as always, the tyre supplier is not going to create a tyre that makes them look bad - they won't want all the drivers moaning about their produce as it negates their reason for being there \ gives them bad PR.

I applaud the FIA for making rule changes - to alleviate stagnation. Newey makes some good comments on how RBR have been able to capitalise on the new regulations (or larger changes than had occurred for some time) which came into force at the start of the '09 season. Brawn took a leap too, but their resources weren't big enough to move them thru in 2010 due to fighting for the championships in '09.

For me, this season would have been similar to '09, if it hadn't have been for RBR's reliability issues - especially for Vettel. But I'm not complaining because the unpredictability has created a close championship.